298 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



fasten themselves to insects that frequent the trees, and get upon the feet 

 of bh'ds, or they may be brushed off on your horse with which you culti- 

 vate your orchards, or they may be brushed off on the clothing of those 

 who examine the trees. 



Lest I should forget it, I want to say now that our inspector forces 

 are never allowed to go from one orchard to another, where there is any 

 danger of carrying insects in that way. We never go directly from 

 one orchard that is infected to another one where there is a possibility 

 of its being infected. 



After this time, that is, about forty-eight hours, they settle down on 

 a twig or a fruit, and it is of somewhat this appearance (indicating). 

 They lose their legs and attach themselves by these filaments. Then, 

 when they get to the stage where they become fastened to the bark, they 

 lose all the appendages of locomotion whatever, and retain only the tube 

 whereby they suck the sap. They live upon the sap of the tree. Then 

 they have this appearance (indicating) still of a yellow color, but covered 

 with the young scale. This is what you would be looking at, directly down 

 on it; and if you covild get a side view, you would see something like this 

 (indicating) elevated, with the little nipple-like appendage in the center. 

 It is yellow at first, and the color later becomes black, and still later takes 

 on a grayish color. 



So far I have been talking to you about one sex, the female. The male 

 is somewhat different. At first it comes from birth, going through these 

 changes, and then developing into a fully grown insect which has wings. 

 The female has no wings, it can not move. The male flies about, any- 

 where at will. 



So much for the appearance of the insect itself. I think with what you 

 have before you, what you see here and what I have been able to tell 

 you, you can form something of an idea of what to look for in your 

 orchards, because I want to tell you it is one of the things that will bear 

 watching, and not only one year, but every year. I do not know why it is, 

 and we can not understand it, that some of the most careful fruit growers 

 we have, men who stand well up in their profession, many of those fruit 

 gi'owers have overlooked this, year after year; they do not intend to do 

 it, but they do; and not only one time has it been done, but again and 

 again. The insect sucks the sap from the tree until the tree will simply 

 stop growing and die. By that time you have a tree looking very much as 

 those darker twigs in those tubes; that is as near as I can describe it. 

 If you would cover that with mucilage, and then dust it with ashes, you 

 would then have a very good idea of the appearance of a tree that has died 

 from the scale in an orchard. 



Now, as. to the way this disease is spread: Of course, you know 

 that in going from one state to another, this has come about largely by 

 way of nursery stock, but it is diffused through the orchard or through a 

 community in several ways. The question comes up very often in regard 



